Comic Info
Comic Name: House of M/The Pulse: House of M Special Edition
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis/Ed Brubaker/Chris Claremont/Daniel Way/Fabian Nicieza/John Layman/Nunzio DeFilippis/Reginald Hudlin/Christina Weir/Greg Pak/Peter David/Tom Peyer
Artist: Olivier Coipel/Mike Mayhew
# of Issues: 9
Release Date: 2006
House of M #4
Reprints House of M #1-8 and The Pulse: House of M Special Edition (August 2005-December 2005). The Avengers have been destroyed by one of their own—the Scarlet Witch! With the discovery that her children with Vision were figments of her magic and imagination, madness caused Wanda to snap. Now, the Avengers and the X-Men must what to do with Wanda…can they kill her? With a decision at hand, Wanda’s powers erupt and create a perfect world where mutants and humans live together and Wanda and her family live like lords. Unfortunately, Wanda’s world isn’t real, and Wolverine might be the only person to know it.
Written by Brian Michael Bendis with other writers filling out The Pulse: House of M Special Edition, House of M was a Marvel event comic that was part of a chain of events that continues to effect the stories to this day. The series was well received and featured multiple spin-off titles and tie-ins.
I was pretty excited for House of M and for the most part, I was satisfied by it but not thrilled by it. The series has problems, but I felt that Bendis had a bit more control over this title than his other big event stories.
House of M #7
I really like it when X-Men are forced to work with other members of the Marvel Universe. Up until this point, other than the occasional crossover, the X-Men had largely remained isolated and in their own world saving battles. Here, the two groups are forced to come together because they have a mutual problem…a mutant with uncontrollable powers that happens to be an Avenger. It is a good way to get the characters to work together.
The series for the most part just becomes an Avengers version of Age of Apocalypse (but nice). The world is perfect and like every story with a perfect world, it must end. The story is rather cliché in that manner and feels a lot like all the other “what if” stories. Unlike a regular What If? issue, it does have lasting ramifications, but it was a big wind-up for a rather expected ending.
I felt it was obvious to readers that Quicksilver was behind the whole thing. With that, the “big reveal” at the end that it was Quicksilver instead of Magneto was almost a non-issue and a lot of build up to nothing. In general, many of the characters in this limited series are acting out of character to even debate killing the Scarlet Witch so Quicksilver was one of the only ones in character.
House of M has moments but mostly has problems. The resulting “No more mutants” was a waste of a lot of time and years and also part of the downfall of Marvel in my opinion because it just felt tired and contrived. House of M also was not well planned with spin-off limited series like House of M: Spider-Man which didn’t even connect big story or make sense in context to the Marvel Universe…something that Marvel has pretty much given up on.
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